The Hand Holding Hypothesis
by Laura Schiller
Summary: Based on "The Alien Parasite Hypothesis". Amy tries to analyze the results of her "experiment", but doesn't get very far.


The Hand Holding Hypothesis

By Laura Schiller

Based on: _The Big Bang Theory_

Copyright: CBS

The first and last time Amy Farrah Fowler had held hands with a boy had been in seventh grade. He had been dared to do it by his friends, the "dare" consisting in the well-known facts of her unattractive appearance and aversion to physical contact. She had yelped and swatted him away, and the entire class had cackled like monkeys. The humiliation of the incident still kept her awake at night sometimes. Any curiosity she might have felt about the subject of romance was thoroughly squashed – or at least redirected into the reading of books and watching of movies.

All things considered, it took a lot of courage for her to proposition Zack Johnson – and even more to take Sheldon Cooper's hand on the way home after changing her mind.

She couldn't help it. The stupid look on Zack's face may have discouraged her from her initial plan, but her heart was still pounding and her palms were still sweaty. The proverbial butterflies were still flying in frantic circles around her stomach, looking for a way out. And when she looked up at Sheldon walking next to her, suddenly she was aware of him in a way she'd never been before.

This was a man who hated talking to strangers, especially uneducated ones. A man who found sex repulsive and preferred to not even think about it. And yet he had spent an entire evening calling every Zack Johnson in Pasadena just to set Amy up on a date. He had done all that for her. Because she was his friend.

And there he was, walking next to her in companionable silence, the street lamps casting shadows on the sharp angles of his face like a Cubist painting. His tall, thin figure in the beige windbreaker shielded her from the wind. And his hand was right there, only a few inches away.

She gathered her nerves, reached over and wove her fingers through his.

It was surprisingly easy for a first attempt. If she didn't know him better, she'd have guessed he was expecting this. The affronted look on his face, however – similar to Zazzles the cat when you stroked his fur in the wrong direction – was not at all encouraging.

"What are you doing?" He held up their joined hands at a cautious distance, the way she herself would pick up a sample of brain tissue with tongs.

"An experiment."

It was the only excuse she could think of that wouldn't make him recoil in disgust. After all, he had done much stranger things himself in the name of research, like working as an unpaid busboy at the Cheesecake Factory. Surely clearing away dirty dishes had to be even worse than holding hands with a woman?

If this was an experiment, though, it had to be the most unprofessional one she'd ever performed. Even when pulling the heads off Barbie dolls at the age of five, she'd been more level-headed than this.

Her thoughts were scattered. She couldn't concentrate. She had been on bad terms with her body since puberty, when it had started betraying her in unpredictable and frankly, terrifying ways, but she hadn't expected the lines of communication between it and her to break down so completely that she couldn't tell what she was feeling.

She liked the feeling of Sheldon's hand in hers. It was warm. She liked the symmetry of it, like two halves of a DNA strand fitting together. But it didn't have quite the same effect as seeing Zack's bottom in tight jeans.

Did that mean she felt no attraction to Sheldon? Or was this simply a different form of attraction? Hands were a more commonplace part of the human body than backsides, one she was more familiar with, and one less likely to make her nervous. But then again, was not the hand the part you would use to touch your lover? Shouldn't that make it one of the most intimate areas, not the least?

Unlike Sheldon and his friends, she didn't care much for science fiction. But at that moment, she would have given every state-of-the-art piece of equipment in her lab for the ability to mind-meld like a Vulcan.

The more she thought about it, the more confused she became. Meanwhile, the only result of this experiment was making Sheldon uncomfortable. She was no expert in reading body language – obviously – but even she could feel the tension crackling through him like electricity through a telephone wire.

The last thing she wanted was for him to leave her. Again.

"Nothing," she said, letting go abruptly. "Never mind."

Briefly, she considered slowing her steps so she could walk behind him and check out what Penny would call his ass. But that really would be taking things too far.


End file.
